


She Has Questions He Doesn’t Want To Answer

by CheerioKid



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Daryl Dixon Needs a Hug, Daryl wants to run away, Grady can kiss my ass, Maggie wants to talk, Past Character Death, Past Nightmares, but Daryl there was a dog!, getting drunk on moonshine, no one makes it out of that with no trauma, who else remembers beth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-28 05:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30134670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerioKid/pseuds/CheerioKid
Summary: Maggie tracks Daryl down to ask about his time with Beth after the prison fell. Sometimes remembering hurts. Sometimes sharing makes it real again.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon & Maggie Greene, Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Finding Daryl

**Author's Note:**

> Short chapter to start. I will be updating fairly regularly. This is my first fic (I have dozens rolling around in my brain!) so please be gentle. 
> 
> Comments are welcome and appreciated!  
> Thanks for reading!

Daryl wasn’t avoiding Maggie. He wasn’t. He just had other places to be whenever she happened to be nearby. The fence needed fixing and Dog had to be-

‘Daryl? Can I talk to you for a minute?’

Shit. Maggie had gotten sneaky in her time away. 

Looking around for an escape proved fruitless, so Daryl grunted and motioned over to the porch of the house he was staying in. 

She was going to try to talk about Glenn, he could feel it. It was his fault after all. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to beat the hell out of him. 

He blurted out ‘Maggie, I’m so sorry. It-‘ at the same time she said ‘I want to talk about Beth.’


	2. Fading memories

If he had been taking a drink, he’d have choked on it. Of all the things in the world he thought she might say, that was not one of them. 

He gave himself a slight shake. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Maybe if he glared a little she would believe it. 

Instead of giving up like he hoped, Maggie let out a heavy sigh. ‘Daryl, did you know that you, me and Carol are the only ones left that knew her? Three people on earth remember Beth. And somehow you were the one that spent the most time with her at...you know. After.’ He would have taken it as an insult if it hadn’t been for the pleading look in her eyes. 

If Daryl was being honest with himself, he had never really forgotten Beth. Sure, he didn’t have nightmares as much and he couldn’t feel the phantom weight of her dead in his arms anymore. But every now and then he saw a flash of blonde hair and a teasing voice calling him in his dreams. 

He sighed. ‘Alright then. Go on.’


	3. The country club

Maggie’s mind had gone blank. She honestly thought Daryl would brush her off and refuse to talk about Beth. It had been years, but even she remembered how he had been in the weeks after Atlanta. 

‘So...you and Beth ran. Together. Did you find some other people to stay with or was it just you and her the whole time?’ 

‘Nah. It was just us. We ran til we dropped. Then we found some fancy ass country club to stay the night in. Beth...she found the clothing shop and came to show me the new shirt she found, but I was beating the shit out of a walker and she ended up with brains all over her instead.’ The corner of his mouth ticked up in the faintest smile. ‘She said she wanted a drink since your daddy would never have allowed it. All there was was peach schnapps and flat cola. I was still so keyed up from everything going south that I grabbed the bottle from her and threw it at the wall. Told her I’d find a real drink instead of that sweet shit.’ He half expected Maggie to be glaring daggers at him. 

Instead she was chuckling softly. ‘Yeah. Daddy would have had a fit if Bethy said she wanted to drink. I just snuck out and never told him.’


	4. Signs on the road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these chapters are super short. I’m trying to get a few out before reformatting it into one longer work.   
> Hopefully the quick updates are helping.   
> Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Maggie went inside and came back with two glasses of water. She handed one to Daryl and asked ‘so you stayed at a country club the whole time? Sounds nice I guess. Relaxing.’

He looked around, hoping Dog would come to his rescue. Damn mutt. 

‘Nah we left next day. Found a highway going...somewhere. Don’t remember what city the signs said. But...’ he took a deep breath. ‘But there was writing on the signs. Your writing. Telling Glenn to come to Terminus. Beth...she kept hoping the next sign would be for her but it never came. Just for Glenn.’ 

He looked up to see Maggie had gone pale. 

‘Girl was such a damn chatterbox, but after that she didn’t say more than two or three words for a couple days. She came around though. Forgot about it. Back to talking my ear off and scaring all the food away. Had to eat mud snakes.’

Maggie still hadn’t moved an inch. 

Daryl fidgeted a bit and said ‘she forgave ya Maggie. I’m sure she did. She knew you and Glenn were...she forgave you.’

Maggie just nodded and stared at her cup.


	5. The shack (pt 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was getting a bit long so I had to split it into a two parter. Poor Daryl has a lot of angst to get out.

‘When I was out scouting with michonne, we found this old ‘shine shack. Someone abandoned it before the turn, but it was good enough to hole up in for awhile. Looked exactly like my pa’s old house but Beth couldn’t believe anyone actually lived like that. Girl had a point.’ 

‘She liked things clean, I suppose.’ Maggie said. 

‘Not shot to shit at least. Anyway. I found a stash of ‘shine for her big first drink, but she said that your daddy told her that bad moonshine could make you go blind.’ He shook his head. ‘Took her a sip or two but she decided the risk was worth it.’

‘She had more than one drink? Bethy?!’ Maggie gaped. 

Daryl rolled his eyes. ‘Girl wanted to play drinking games and everything. I didn’t want to but somehow she sweet talked me into it.’ His stomach dropped at the thought of telling Maggie what came next. ‘She said the game was Never Have I Ever. You would have thought she was trying to lose. She’d never shot a crossbow. Never been drunk. Seemed like a dumb game but I...I get a temper when I drink and some of the questions set me off.’ Remembering the things he’d screamed at Beth...he felt ashamed all over again. ‘Started yelling at her that I’d never sang for fun or got presents from Santa clause or...or cut my wrists.’ He paused for a beat. He wasn’t about to admit it to Maggie but he had tried to cut his wrists when negan had him in that fucking cell. He wiped his hand down his face so he didn’t have to look at her. 

‘Ended up dragging her outside to make her shoot at some walker for target practice. Somehow she wiggled away from me to kill it herself, got in my face yelling at me that killing them wasn’t supposed to be fun. So I...I...’ all the remembering was making Daryl sick to his stomach. ‘I’ll be back in a minute’ he mumbled to Maggie as he went inside and closed the door.


	6. The Shack pt 2

Daryl grabbed the last of the beers he had been saving and took a long swig. He eyed the back door. if he was lucky he could sneak out, maybe live off the land for the rest of his life. He settled on kicking the refrigerator door closed a bit harder than necessary and headed back to the porch. 

Maggie stared at him quietly and he cleared his throat. Ok then...

‘Right. So she’s yellin at me and I’m still all worked up. She tells me that losing Sophia made me afraid to let people get close to me. Called bullshit that I was actin like I didn’t care people died or-

‘Wait wait wait...are you paraphrasing or did Bethy actually say ‘bullshit’? Maggie’s eyes were wide. 

‘yelled it in my face actually...I wouldn’t have thought it but she had a temper under all that sugar sweetness.’ he mumbled. (Maggie’s eyebrow shot up at that but she let it slide.) ‘I told her that she was a fool for believing anyone was still alive. That I was never going to see Rick and...’ Damnit, he was tearing up all over again. He looked away from Maggie to quickly rub at his face before starting again. ‘And that she would never see you again. She got quiet for a second and I swear if looks could kill I’d have been dead on the spot. ‘She told me that she knew what I thought of her. That she was weak, deadweight.’ It was true, they all thought it. It’s why they kept her inside as much as possible. ‘Said that she might not be Carol or Michonne or...or you. But she survived just the same.’ He stopped himself from saying more. It felt wrong to share how he’d cried like a baby in Beths arms or how cathartic it was. 

‘Later, after we both calmed down, we were talking on the porch. Told her about driftin around with Merle. What shit was like. Turns out she liked to ramble when she was drunk. Kept talking about how she wished she was strong like you, that she thought your daddy would get to be old, how she thought I was a good person.’ He couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘You believe that? Probably the first person to tell a Dixon they were a good person.’

It didn’t escape Maggie’s notice that Daryl kept playing with a knife that looked suspiciously like one Beth used to have. 

‘Girl thought she had a crystal ball, starts talking about the future. How I was going to be the last one standing. I think she meant it as a compliment but damn if it didn’t sound like some kind of curse...’ People seemed to be dropping like flies around him so he wouldn’t be surprised if his luck ran out one of these days and he was left all alone. ‘Said I was...I was gonna miss her so bad when she was gone.’ He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to hear Beths voice. ‘Fuck. Maybe she did have that crystal ball after all.’ Daryl didn’t bother turning away when he wiped his eyes this time. ‘But she was still tipsy and said we should burn that shit hole down. So we did. Girl stared into the flames with a big smile and gave the whole thing the bird.’


End file.
